Field of the Invention
The invention is related to a storage system and a caching method and more particularly, to a network storage system and a method for file caching.
Description of Related Art
With the progress of technologies, network storage space sizes that can be provided to different users by servers (e.g., cloud servers, network drives, personal cloud server and so on) have been increasingly large (e.g., 2 TB) and even have been much larger than storage space sizes (e.g., 32 GB through 1 TB) of normal electronic apparatuses (e.g., smart phones, personal computers (PCs), tablet PCs, notebook PCs and so on). In this situation, when a user wants to access files in the aforementioned network storage space through a normal electronic apparatus to perform offline operations, the user generally has to set the files to be accessed offline manually since all the files in the network storage space are incapable of being copied in to the electronic apparatus (due to the electronic apparatus probably having an insufficient storage space for storing all the files of the network storage space).
As a result, the electronic apparatus may be capable of caching corresponding files according to the user's setting, such that the user may still be able to edit the files when the electronic apparatus is not connected with the server (i.e., offline). Even though the electronic apparatus may additionally capture other files that are stored in the network storage space utilizing a caching mechanism, the files cached by the electronic apparatus may probably be insufficient for the offline operations of the user because the conventional caching mechanism is not designed according to file usage requirements of the user. In other words, the typical electronic apparatuses and servers are incapable of automatically providing the user with a useful offline operation mode.
Moreover, the conventional caching mechanism is only present in an electronic apparatus that is currently being used by the user. Therefore, when the user wants to perform offline operations on another electronic apparatus, the other electronic apparatus may not have the latest versions of the files, and as a result, the user may probably be unable to perform offline operations.